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Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Dainty Lemon-Pistachio cookies and another cherry dish...

As you know, Tuesday's the day we bake for the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day! Since we just did a treat with cherries for his co-workers last Friday, we went a different route and decided to try out these Lemon-Pistachio White Chocolate Buttercream Cookies.

The dough for these bright sandwich cookies is buttery, rich and shortbread-like with tiny shreds of fresh lemon zest studded throughout. Because you want to keep the cookies tender, I like to roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper - this way you don't need to add any additional flour and it is a little cleaner. The dough for these is a little on the sticky side, so be sure it stays fairly cold while you work with it - if it gets too soft, just stop, cover it and place it into the refrigerator or the freezer until it firms up enough. Don't let us sway you with what shape to cut these in, use whatever simple cookie cutter you want - we chose a scalloped rectangle cutter just because it looked fun. Round, oval or square would be just fine - if I had more time, I would have used a combination of shapes just to change them up.

To gussy these up, a white chocolate buttercream is prepared to spread in between the crisp cookies. To continue the lemon theme (and because white chocolate and lemon work very well together), a bit more zest and fresh juice is added to the creamy filling. The pistachios come in once the cookies have finally been assembled. To help the nuts stick and add a decorative flare, the top of the cookies are given a squiggle of white chocolate, followed by a few pieces of the chopped pistachio. I could have eaten the single cookies by themselves and been satisfied, but that delectable generous layer of buttercream really set them off with a bang. Very lemon-y, these cookie sandwiches were a pleasure to work with and I can easily see these at any function, be it a business meeting, a casual get together or just because!

Since the treat day goodies didn't have any cherries, we carried them into a breakfast-for-dinner night this evening and made these Ricotta Pancakes with Brown Sugar-Cherry Sauce.

Before preparing the fluffy pancakes, we were busy making the sweet ruby sauce to pour on top. Chunky halved cherries and a bit of water are mixed with brown sugar and a dab of butter for the base of the sauce. To thicken up the juices, a slurry of cornstarch and water is added - it will quickly thicken once it comes to a boil, so if the sauce gets away from you and becomes too thick, you can add dribbles of water to thin it back down. I loved how brown sugar added a wonderful syrup-y depth that I thought would have been missed if you used a granulated sugar instead. Once removed from the heat, a shot of fresh lemon juice is added for an acidic note.

Because ricotta can be quite heavy, the batter for the pancakes needed a little help so they didn't feel like hockey pucks. So, instead of using whole eggs, the whites are separated away and beaten with a dash of cream of tartar until they are stiff, but not dry. Folded into the mixture in a few additions, the whites gave wings to the batter and lightened it right up. Because the batter is quite airy at this point, you'll need to gently spread the mound of batter once dropped onto your griddle - you can either use an off-set spatula or even the bottom of the measuring cup to move the process along.

Jeff has a "thing" about ricotta cheese still... so I got the old eye roll as soon as he saw me pull out the container tonight. I don't know why this is as he has eaten ricotta so many times now and always ends up enjoying it - I wonder what's up with that? Fairly mild already, the ricotta brought a nice background and made these a little more filling. If I would have thought of it, a little vanilla or maybe some vanilla sugar would have been a nice way to infuse a little more flavor into the cakes. In the end though, it probably doesn't matter too much as they worked as a nice vehicle to soak up the delicious cherry sauce.

Good Gravy! I had pretty much decided to see if you guys would adopt me. Now it's cinched. So? I'll do the dishes and I've already been to college. Of course you'll need some time to think about it. I understand.